The Five
by g21lto
Summary: The Venber -- a race exploited for the properties of their dead bodies. The Five -- a race desperate to guard against its own vulnerability. Five space cadets -- standing against an empire in the hopes of saving ... what?
1. What's the Captain's real name, anyway?

A/N:  Well, here we go.  First Animorphs fic posted.  I've written other stories and poems about everyone's favorite blue centaurs and company, but you probably don't want to see those.  And I've written other assorted stories, most of them about Harry Potter.  I like_ this Animorphs story, however.  Please tell me if you do too (hint hint, REVIEW).  (Thank you.)_

Just a few little notes:

-This is, of course, the tragic story of the Five, the Venber, and the Andalites.  No duh.

-The word _limner_ is actually a creation of K. A.  It's never explained, but Edriss uses it in _Visser_ to describe a creature similar to an Andalite in body form.  The Desbadeens are also a K. A.-created race, also from _Visser_, and also connected with the _limners_.  The Skrit-Na are K. A.'s too.  The Five-Andalite-Venber conflict in brief is the property of K. A.'s mind (all hail, all hail), but the way it is presented here is totally mine, and the five species presented here are mine.  ALL mine!  Mwahahaha!  So I guess this whole thing was one big long disclaimer.  Anyway.  On to the story.

Chapter One

It's not easy being a Little, you know?  Littles just are not given the kind of attention that other people are.  Take Swimmers, for example.  They are huge fish, and, as you know, they use a language of eye-blinks to communicate.  Not like the rest of us, who talk with our mouths.  Or take Clappers.  They are always tall and thin—spindly, I'd say, if it weren't for their obvious grace—and they have one, gigantic foot.  Flyers are iridescent insects, beautiful and sky-worthy.  Greats, of course, are Greats.  Strong and reptilian.  Very intimidating.

Littles?  We are mammals, just like the Clappers.  We are bipeds with two arms, just like the Greats.  We are usually short, just like the Flyers.  We have no special abilities, really.  We are overlooked.

Or at least, that's how it felt to me.  Aboard the starship _Keyala, I was the only cadet who was a Little.  There were a few others, mostly Greats, and also my best friend Kasseena, who is a Flyer, and a boy named Abosh, who is a Swimmer.  Kasseena was noticed because her father was the ship's science officer, and also because of her startlingly violet and blue coloring (most Flyers are blue and green).  Abosh was noticed because he was the youngest, and therefore the __cavisi (a Swimmer term, I'm not exactly sure what it means) of all the male Swimmers on board.  I, Aniera sin Keyla, was the only Little, and still I was not given too much recognition.  Of course, to be sure, I hadn't really done anything great.  But Kasseena and Abosh hadn't exactly done great things either, so there you are._

Cadets work in a variety of environments on a starship.  In case you've never been in the Fleet, you might be surprised the number of kids you see doing jobs that are normally reserved for adults.  I myself worked in the field of maintenance, and as a junior staff member I was actually trusted to repair a lot of the things that broke or malfunctioned aboard ship.  Unfortunately, those things that broke most often were food synthesizers and games in the recreation chambers, so I had not exactly saved the ship from certain doom and won the well-deserved gratitude of all on board yet.  

Ah, well.  There was time.  But some recognition for my hard work would have been appreciated.  

I was thinking about along those lines as I paused just before the doorway to recreation chamber number three, or RC3 in _Keyala__ jargon.  A food synthesizer had just been reported broken, so I was there to fix it.  I pushed open the door to RC3, surveyed the room quickly.  You can usually tell what's happened to the thing you have to fix by seeing who's in the room.  If there are a few Greats present, then the buttons on the machine were probably pushed too hard, or some crewman took his fists to it.  Greats are very strong, and sometimes don't know their own strength._

Sure enough, there were a few Great crewmen standing around the synthesizer and talking, waiting for me to fix it so they could get back to their snacking.  I took off the front aluminum panel of the synthesizer.  Sure enough, one of the buttons had been pushed too hard, and was broken.  The rest of the machine was okay.  I replaced the damaged part and straightened out the wiring that had been tangled, for some reason, as if _someone had been pounding on the poor thing in frustration.  It took about ten minutes, and then the crewmates were happily back to recreating, or whatever you call what you do in a recreation chamber._

As I stepped out into the hallway, I was greeted by Kasseena.  Greeted rather suddenly, as she flew up behind my shoulder, buzzing her wings excitedly.  

"Whoa!"

"Oops—sorry.  I forgot you don't like me to sneak up on you," she said, not sounding sorry at all.  In fact, she looked downright distracted.  Out of breath, too, which is sort of hard to tell in Flyers, as they're insects and breathe through their skin.  

"Listen," she told me.  "The Captain says he wants all minor maintenance personnel on call on the bridge, just in case."

"In case of what?"

"Oh, didn't you hear?" she asked, sounding surprised.  "They didn't make an announcement?"

"An announcement for _what?_"

At that point the intercom blared to life in the wall beside us and answered for Kasseena.  I immediately knew _something_ was up.  It is rare that the intercom system is used on board ship.  All senior officers and vital crew members are given comlinks to take with them wherever they go.  Other, less important people have to rely on messengers to bring them orders or instructions.  I'll let you draw your own conclusions about where _I_ fit in this picture.  Anyway, this was Kasseena's job:  her wings made her a speedy messenger.

Since intercoms are used only once in a double sun, I knew this must be important.  And indeed, it was:

"Attention all personnel, attention all personnel.  Meeting with unknown contact.  All personnel to battle stations.  Repeat, all personnel to battle stations."

"Oh," I said.  Minor maintenance workers like me have no battle stations.  The Captain wanted us on the bridge, so if we were needed somewhere, he could send us there without a lot of bothering with messengers.

"'Oh.'  So come on!"  Grabbing my arm in two of her fragile insect hands, she began pulling me with surprising strength towards the elevator shaft.

"What kind of ship is it?"  I asked as I threaded through the crowd in the hallway behind her.  "Is it a raider?  Are we talking some little Skrit-Na here?"

We had now reached the elevator shaft.  We boarded it and started upwards.  Kasseena now stood on her two bottommost limbs, which are what you'd think of as her legs, even though all of her limbs are technically called 'legs.'

"Well, Aniera," she said, "I'm not really supposed to tell, because the Captain doesn't want the janitors and people to be all in a fit…"

"Oh, come on, Kass.  We're in the elevator.  Who's going to hear?"

"All right," she agreed, face brightening.  I could tell Kasseena really had wanted to tell me all along.  And I really wanted to know, so that worked out well.

"What kind?  A Skrit-Na?  Desbadeen transport?  No, that wouldn't be hostile…"

"It's an Andalite ship," she informed me, a slight smile in her eyes at my reaction.  A smile that didn't really fit.

"_Andalite?_  The blue _limners_ themselves?"

I could tell she was as anxious as I was.  The Andalites are the only other race in the galaxy who could maybe rival us technology-wise.  And we have reason to believe that they might have already surpassed us.  We have never really established formal contact with them.  We just speak occasionally when our starships meet, usually in someone's territory, ours or theirs.  We have only seen a few Andalites, and they have never seen any of us.  And we're not really friends or enemies.  But meeting an Andalite ship in an unclaimed section of space like we were in now could most surely mean trouble.  

"Bridge," announced a computer voice within the elevator.  The elevator doors opened on the bridge, and I could see that we were the last to arrive.  I felt my cheeks turn crimson instead of their usual red, as they usually do when I'm embarrassed.  Oh, I was _well_ on my way to earning the deserved gratitude of all on board.  Kasseena showed no sign of embarrassment, but then I've found that she is a good actress.  

The Captain had a small group of us standing at the back of the bridge, where we could get to an elevator quickly if need be, and wouldn't be in the way of the crew members working around us.  We could also see the view-screen very well, I noticed, and from the view-screen you could see the Andalite ship very well, a small white pebble against the backdrop of stars and asteroids.  

I held my breath, and could feel Kasseena tensing up beside me.  Would they shoot?  Would they leave?  What would happen?

"Take us closer to them," the Captain ordered.  The helmsman, a tall, fair-complected Clapper woman, obeyed.  Off to my right, I saw Kasseena's father, the science officer, sit up with insectile grace and peer more closely at the screen.  The Captain nodded acknowledgement of the helmsman's work and spun around to pace a small circle.  

The Captain, so far as I can tell, goes by no name other than "the Captain," for I've never heard him called anything else.  He is almost feared by some on board, and I know from hearsay that he can be scary when he wants to be.  He doesn't try very often, though.  He is an exceptionally large Great with green-brown scales, so he doesn't really _have_ to try.  I had only seen him face-to-face two other times, both when I was cleaning up some mechanical mess in RC1, which is where the senior officers hang out.  Or whatever you do in a recreation chamber if you're a senior officer.

I could feel the collective tension of everyone on the bridge—maybe the whole ship—settle into the task of watching the Andalite.  This was the crucial moment.

"Hail him," said the Captain, but scarcely had the communications officer moved his hand than a faint _tseew came across the sound-simulation speakers.  The Andalite ship was firing its Shredders!_

_Tseew!  Tseew!_ came the faint sounds, which were of course only a computer's estimation of what the sound of Shredders would be in our home planet's atmosphere, since sound waves, despite what the entertainment channels may show, do not travel through space.  

_Tseew!_  I snapped my thoughts back to the situation at hand, vaguely amused that I could find time in battle to be pondering the laws of physics.  But _was it a battle?_

"Shields up!" called the Captain, just in time to deflect two laser blasts that came our way, passing close enough to throw the ship a meter or so.  But the Andalite ship continued to fire, almost at random, indiscriminately spraying space with shredder fire.

"What is he doing?" I whispered to Kasseena, who was hovering in the air beside me to avoid being thrown around with the ship.

"No idea."

_Tseew!_  A far-off object, an asteroid to all appearances, exploded in a cloud of incandescent dust.  I was more worried about the asteroids than the Andalite, who seemed to be ignoring us now.  Shields aren't as good with solid matter as they are with energy beams.  That is one place where the Andalites surely had us technology-wise, because they seemed perfectly at home within the danger zone of asteroids.

_Tseew._  A distant asteroid exploded.

_Tseew_.  Another.

_Tseew._  Missed.

Missed?

"Target practice," I said, suddenly understanding.  "It's target practice with asteroids!"

The Captain turned to scowl at me, and I piped down at once.  

"You may be correct," the Captain told me, looking like a mixture between thoughtful and annoyed.  If that's even possible.  "I was thinking along the same lines myself.  But that is for me to decide."

My cheeks must have attained a deep maroon at this point.  I know I looked strange, at any rate, because Kasseena suddenly developed an interest in the wall of the room opposite where I was standing.  I have orange hair and eyes, a typical color for Littles, so I could only imagine how I looked.  Red and orange clash anyway, as my mirror is happy to show me every morning.

Whaam-BOOM!

The entire ship shuddered, and I was thrown off my feet.  Regaining my standing position, I saw that the large asteroid we had been using as a partial shield from the Andalite had exploded.  The _Keyala_'s shields had obviously overloaded and failed, which any cadet with any background in machines could have told you.  

Alarms rang all over the bridge.  I tasted adrenaline in my mouth.

"Sir, communications dish has been destroyed.  We have spare parts, but we would need the shield up before we attempted to send a person outside the ship to install them."

"Well.  Then the shields must be fixed," the Captain said unnecessarily.  "The space inside the shield generator is very tight.  I need a Little for the job."

He turned to us.  My heart began to beat quickly—

--and then slowed down.

There was an older, more experienced Little also in our crowd.  This man left through one of the elevators.  Kasseena, at a glance from the Captain, left with him, just in case messages needed to be sent.  The Captain turned back to the officers on the bridge.

"Take us out of the plane of the asteroid field," he ordered.  As the ship moved (with a great groaning sound that I could imagine made all on board wince), the Andalites apparently had not noticed us yet.  At least, they made no halt in their rhythmic shooting.

"Unthinking brutes," came the "voice" of Bosh, the Captain's second in command.  Bosh is a Swimmer, so he does not, of course, have vocal cords.  Swimmers communicate with a language of eye blinks, and the shipboard computer translates for them.

Swimmers cannot survive in open air.  So inside every starship there is a system of connecting tunnels, full of gently circulating water.  The tunnels are big enough around for two Swimmers to pass each other inside them, and they lead to every area of the ship that a swimmer might need to get to.  Needless to say, Swimmers aren't usually security guards or mechanics.  But they can be integral parts of the crew.  Bosh, as second in command, of course needed to have access to the bridge.  So a special tunnel had been built on the _Keyala, which connected to a large water tank at one station on the bridge, so that he could be around if the Captain needed him.  I think that is one of the things that makes the Fleet so special.  No two ships are built exactly alike, but to the needs of the crew.  I've heard that there is one ship somewhere where the crew is almost entirely Swimmer, except for a few Greats.  In that ship, most of the ship is filled with water, while there are tunnels containing __air for the great crewmen to live and work in.  _

Bosh moved his fins so as to position his large red-scaled body to be facing the view-screen.  As for me, I glanced over to the sensor station, where Kasseena's father was working.  He must have been searching for a safe place for the ship to land.  In fact, looking back, I know for a fact that he was.  Also looking back, I can't decide if it was ultimately a good or bad thing that he found a place.  

At that point, the elevator doors opened behind me and Kasseena flew out, breathless again.

"Captain," she said, "Manieral—the Little you sent to work on the shields—he says that they can't be brought back up without a major repair job.  He said it would take him at least five to six hours alone, maybe three with another person helping him."

"Sir," came the voice of her father.  He looked up from his station, hovering in the air for greater maneuverability.  "There is one planet in the system—a brown dwarf, or a gas giant too small to have become a star," he explained, though the Captain surely knew what a brown dwarf was.  Kasseena once mentioned to me that her father loves to explain things.  He is the science officer, after all.  "It has only two moons that the sensors have picked up, one incredibly volcanically active, the other incredibly cold.  But at least," he added wryly, "the ship would be in no danger of melting on the ice moon."  The Captain accepted the somewhat eccentrically-delivered appraisal with a nod of his head.

"Cadet," he said, addressing Kasseena, "tell Manieral that we are landing on a moon within the hour.  I will have the maintenance and mechanics staff repair damage done to the hull and shields by the exploding asteroid.  We need to power down most of our systems for this repair work to go on.  Then the communications dish will be repaired, and then our shields.  Tell him to report to his emergency station.  Everyone else is already there."

Kasseena flew off again, and I could see her rubbing her hands together, which is what she does when she'd concentrating on something.

The Captain looked at the rest of us.  "Well, get to your emergency stations," he barked.  The others all left.  I was the only one left standing on the bridge.  Cadets do not have emergency stations.

"Umm…sir?" I asked timidly.  "Where—"

"All cadets will go about their regular routines," the Captain informed me.  "Go on back to maintenance headquarters."

"Yes, sir."  

I left, mentally running through the list of cuss words I knew in Great—and Little.  Would I _ever_ be the one to make a difference?

A/N: *grabs tissue* Poor Aniera!  Can she ever make a difference?  Do anything special?

…oh, I think you know the answer to that…*prepares to make Aniera's life hell*  *cackling evilly all the while*


	2. So why are the shift names in Old Great ...

A/N: Three new characters of note.  Dialoguey.  Damn, that just came up as a spelling error.  Oh well.  I don't care.  I like the character of Hanesh a lot, more than any of the others, even if he is annoying.  Probably because when I started writing this, Hanesh was modeled after this annoying friend of mine.  Who I thought was really cute.  I don't any more, but the sentimental feelings for the character remain, I guess.  Even if he is covered in scales and could tear a human into tiny shreds if he so wished.  Hanesh, not the guy I used to like.

Chapter Two

I stayed at the maintenance and mechanics headquarters for the rest of the shift.  There are two shipboard shifts, Amagan and Geradam (that's Old Great for "first" and "second").  I was on Amagan shift, along with Kasseena and most of the people I knew.  When time came for the Amagan sleep period, I waited for the Geradam maintenance cadet (a Clapper boy named Daran) to come, then left for bed.  In the hall along the way, I ran into Kasseena.  

"Long day?" I asked wryly.

She merely buzzed her wings in answer.  I think I had annoyed her.

We continued on, past tired Amagan crewmen on their way to dinner or bed, and past yawning Geradam replacements for them.  As we passed a pair of security guards on routine patrol, Kasseena turned to me (she was on the ground for a change, which was why she could do this), and said, "Some day, Aniera—some day."

Kasseena's goal in the fleet is to be chief of security on a starship.  I have to say, the odds are pretty slim.  Flyers are usually not very large or strong, and anyway Kasseena's appearance is not all that commanding.  It's kind of hard to be when you look like a graceful, slender dragonfly that could be snapped in two by a Little.  Not that I'd want to, of course.  Kasseena would have a hard time wearing a laser gun holster strapped to her waist as well, since she is so light.  I could safely say that of all the security personnel aboard _Keyala, not one of them was a Flyer.  But I didn't want to say anything to make her think I didn't believe in her.  Unfortunately, others didn't share my caring._

"Oh.  Uh-huh.  And Bosh is going to grow legs and walk on the ground."  We spun around to see Hanesh, another Amagan cadet, walking up to us at the elevator.

"Hello," I said politely, mostly because an officer was walking by at that moment and I didn't want to look childish.

"So, Kasseena," Hanesh, who is a male Great with dark brown scales, started.  "Still want to be a security officer?"

"Yes, I do," she said primly.

He nodded, looking unimpressed.  The elevator arrived and we all piled in.  I pushed the button for deck ten, which is where cadet rooms are (I didn't want Hanesh to try pushing it and end up breaking it—he has before).  

"Well," Kasseena said to me," What do you think about that Andalite ship today?"

"_Andalite _ship? That was an _Andalite?_"  Hanesh's eyes looked ready to pop out.  "I knew there was a battle—"

"I thought the meeting went nowhere," I said, enjoying the boy's reaction.  He can be pretty annoying sometimes, so it was nice to have him hanging on our every word for once.  "I mean, we never even spoke."

"But their Shredders seemed to be in top working order, huh?" Kasseena continued the conversation with a smirk on her almost-unreadable insect face.

"Oh, yeah," I said. "That one big blast—"

"All right, all right," Hanesh said, giving in.  "I will ask.  I will beg.  WHAT happened?"

"Oh, my," Kasseena said to me, "he actually needs information from a Little and a Flyer."

"Please," he cut in, and we were satisfied.  We told him the story of the sighting, the target practice, and the exploding asteroid; Kasseena and I took turns telling, as we hadn't both seen the entire encounter.

"Deck ten," the computer voice announced, and the doors opened.  We left quickly and walked along the corridor to the Amagan cadets' quarters.  They were located in a small room—all right, large room, but home to five people—about twenty meters down the corridor.  As we entered, I saw that one of the other cadets on Amagan shift, Abosh the Swimmer, was already in his special sleeping tank at the far end of the room.

"Good evening," he blinked to us.  He shifted his emerald and aqua body within the tank.  "Do you know what's going on?  The water in the tunnels is totally still.  Does it have something to do with that battle we had earlier today?"

"Uh-huh.  But it wasn't exactly a battle," I said.  "There—"

"It was an Andalite ship," Hanesh butted in, as if we hadn't been the ones to give him all of his information.  "They were having target practice in the asteroid field, and they blew up this huge asteroid right next to our ship.  The shields are blown, and we've landed on this, like, unknown moon to make repairs.  All but the electricity and life support systems are turned off."

Abosh made a movement with his fins that I translated as "oh, great."

"Oh, great," he said.  "Do you know how nasty water gets if it stays still for—"

"Well, Manieral says that it'll only take about thirty-six hours to fix everything.  A day and a half, tops," Kasseena reassured him.  She began to hover, stretching out her wings from the walking we'd done.

"Who's Manieral?" Hanesh asked.

"Little maintenance guy.  Real nice guy, too.  He was working on the shield generators before we landed.  All I know is, he's the first person this week to call me 'Kasseena' instead of 'Flyer' or 'cadet.'"

"You know," Hanesh said, assuming his "I just love to annoy you" look, "I can understand that there are no Flyers your age around here.  But when you go finding qualities in a different species—"

Kasseena, who had been hovering near the ceiling, made a dive at him.  To her credit, he ducked.

"Oh, be quiet," she said, buzzing her wings loudly, though she was now standing on her feet.  "You know what I meant."

At this point, Yanesh, Hanesh's twin sister, came in the door to our quarters.  She looks a lot like him, other Greats say, but personally I can't see it, probably because I'm not a Great.  She is the same size as him and has dark blue scales instead of Hanesh's dark brown.  Now our little group was complete.

"Important conversation?" she asked.

"Not exactly," I replied, giving Hanesh a glare for Kasseena's sake.

"There was an Andalite ship spotted today," said Abosh, pulling Hanesh's trick.

Yanesh's eyes opened wide.  "_Andalite?_  As in, the blue _limners?"_

"That was approximately Aniera's response," Kasseena said.  "And yes, it was Andalite.  And no, they were not shooting at us.  They were having target practice, and the asteroid near us was their target."

I pushed back my chin-length orange hair and sighed.  "We're sitting on a moon in the middle of nowhere right now, waiting for repairs to get finished so we can leave.  All systems except electricity for lights and elevators, plus life support, are turned off."

Yanesh nodded thoughtfully.  "I thought the ArtiGrav system was feeling a little weak."

"What do you know about this moon?" Abosh asked.  "Just out of curiosity."

"It's small," I told him, thinking back to this morning on the bridge.  "Cold."

"Average temperature of one hundred forty-four Kelvin," said Kasseena.  Science officer's daughter.

Hanesh whistled.  "So what does the surface look like?"

"I wouldn't know," I said.

"I've been running back and for the between maintenance people all day," Kasseena said.  "I wouldn't know either."

Hanesh smiled.  "Well, I'll be the first on something today."  He quickly dashed to the outside wall of our room.  One of the nice things about our quarters, even though all five of us share the room, is that we have a window to the outside.  Mostly the ship is in z-space, so all you can see is blank white, and you have to draw the opaque shade during sleep periods, but when you're in normal space, it is nice to open the shade and see stars at night.

Hanesh opened the shade, and was immediately disappointed.  "Nothing," he complained.  "There is nothing out there but a horizon line.  And a really curved one, at that.  No surface features."  He turned away from the window as if in disgust.  I walked up and looked out, enjoying the normalcy of seeing stars.  I found our home star quickly, as I'd been keeping a record of where in the sky to find it everywhere the _Keyala_ traveled.

"Excuse me," Abosh said testily.  "But even though it is a very small window, I'd like to be able to see out of it, too."  I moved out of the way so that the fish boy could see outside.  I looked again for our home star.

It's an interesting fact that most sentient races in the galaxy have a planet to themselves.  The Andalites and the Desbadeens are two examples.  We five species, the Swimmers, the Flyers, the Littles, the Clappers, and the Greats, all share one planet. It seemed to me that it would be awfully lonely to be all by yourself like many are, but that is how most people live.  Weird as it may seem.  In fact, that is the reason we usually greet another race by saying, "We are the five.  And we are of one."  That's why other races call us The Five.  We really don't have a name for ourselves, other than the names of the individual species.  I guess "the Five" works, though it's a little melodramatic.  Like someone looking at us just from the name would think we were these solemn, sophisticated people that all know martial arts and computer hacking skills and all wear color-coordinated spacesuits, or something.  I guess they'd be kind of surprised to actually meet us.

A few minutes later, we all became bored with the bleak landscape outside, despite the awesome sky above.  Time to get ready for bed.  In addition to Abosh's tank, there are two sets of bunks in our room, two bunks in each set.  Hanesh and Yanesh sleep on one set, alternating top and bottom—in a system loosely based on who has the best right hook on any given night.  Well, there's the martial arts thing, at least.  I sleep on the bottom of the other set.  Flyers don't sleep on normal beds; they just "stand" (on all limbs) on a hard surface.  So the top bunk of our set of beds had been removed, and in its place was a simple wooden board for Kasseena to sleep on.  

Yanesh, Hanesh, and I took turns in our adjacent changing room.  (Though it is used for *other* purposes, we just call it "the changing room."  Just in case you were curious.)  Flyers do not wear clothing, so Kasseena didn't take a turn, and Abosh couldn't reach the room even if he _did_ wear clothes.

"You know, you really ought to get to sleep as soon as you can," Abosh said in his "parental" voice that he has an annoying habit of using.  "Who knows what will happen tomorrow?"

"We're moving, Mr. _Cavisi_," I mumbled under my breath as I turned off the room lights.

Or I _thought _it had been under my breath.

"Ooh, looks like somebody's jealous."

I've always wondered how the computer can sense Swimmer-language in the dark.  All I knew was sometimes, I wish it couldn't.  Especially when Abosh came out with a remark that was particularly Hanesh-like.  

"Oh, you people be quiet.  I just want to get to sleep."

"Yes, ma'am, security officer, sir!"

Yanesh reached down and punched Hanesh somewhere that sounded squishy and painful.

Then we all went to sleep.

A/N: I do not own _The Matrix_.  Or any other superhero/cool leather outfits kind of thing out there.  Not that they were specifically mentioned, but having a disclaimer is being on the safe side.


	3. So what's the deal with Hanesh and Abosh...

A/N: Dun dun dun…guess who we meet in THIS chapter?  It's only our third major species of the story!  Or seventh, I guess… And everyone's favorite B.R.E. is back!

Chapter Three

Well, that might have been a little misleading.  I know for a fact that the others went to sleep at that point, but I stayed awake for a while.  It usually takes me a while to get to sleep on a starship, even after a full day's work.  Maybe because I'm still, after months on the _Keyala, used to my mattress pad at home.  Whatever the reason, I was restless that night.  When I'm restless, I usually get up to look out the window (unless we're in Z-space, in which case the others would have a case for justified murder).  When I look out the window at the normal-space stars, I usually get weirdly philosophical.  _

So I got up, moved to the window, found the brightest area of sky (the galaxy core, now risen above the horizon), and was well into an internal debate on destiny by the time my eyes had fully adjusted.  Unfortunately, I don't know much about our free will theories, so I soon ran out of material.  And the landscape was just as bleak now as it had been before.  No moon could be _this smooth, could it?  I mean, science had been my favorite subject in school, and no planet or moon we'd ever found was fully smooth.  Even the infamous Madra Moon, close up, had icy outcrops.  _

So I looked for the horizon line, the divider between sky-filling galactic core and smooth icy terrain.  

I didn't see any rock outcrops.

But I did see something moving.  Something large.  Something very large, with a slow, bipedal gait.  

"Hey guys!" I whispered urgently.  "Guys!  People!  Wake up!"

"Hhmmph," murmured Hanesh into his pillow.

"Hanesh!" I whisper-yelled, shaking him awake by the shoulder.  And immediately jumping backward, because shaking a Great awake by the shoulder is a dangerous thing if you're a Little.

Hanesh sat up.  "It's way too late, Aniera," he whined, rubbing his reptilian eyes.  "Go back to—"  I pulled on his arm until he stood up, and then brought him back to the window with me.  

"There's something moving around out there!"

"Why exactly are we whispering here?" Hanesh whispered, totally ignoring my urgency.

"Hanesh, focus!  Look out the window!  Do you see anything?"

He looked out the window.  Then he rubbed his eyes and looked again.

"Whoa—OK.  I'm seeing some moving rocks out there."

"They're people, of course," I said.  "Natives!"

Hanesh just gave me a look.  One of his "superior" looks.  "Aniera," he said, "might I remind you that it's _a hundred and forty-four K out there?  That's a hundred twenty-nine K below the freezing point of water—"_

"No, you don't need to remind me," I said irritably.  "Just look, will you?  There are people out there."

"Yes.  And they're obviously from the _Keyala_.  Crew members on a scientific expedition or whatever.  Kasseena's father must be dying for a few samples.  I heard he's been pestering the Captain since we've landed."

I frowned, wondering how Hanesh had heard that bit of gossip.  Then again, I didn't yet know where he worked.  Funny, isn't it?  I'd known him for months.

I was interrupted from my ponderings by a pair of Great knuckles rapping on the top of my head.

"Ow!"

"It's a little late for your Little brain," Hanesh said, and laughed at his own pun as he went back to bed.

I don't think he'd meant it to hurt.  But I went back to my own bunk rubbing my skull and cursing silently.  And also thinking about what Hanesh had said.  He was probably right; it was, after all, extremely cold on this moon, with very little atmosphere.  It had to be _Keyala_ crewers.  And yet…

And yet, who had ever seen a Great that tall?

RC7 was only about a hundred meters further down the deck 10 corridor than the Amagan cadet quarters, and, we had calculated, a hundred and ten by water tunnel.  Abosh claimed a sustained swimming speed of forty-eight kilometers per hour.  A speed which would give him a time of seven point five seconds, according to the mental math skills of Hanesh.  

"Impossible," he'd said flatly.  

"Possible," Abosh had said, "and moreover, I resent the implication that you know my own physical capabilities better than me, Hanesh."

"Well, we're going to have to settle this some way."  Hanesh.  "Aniera, stop rolling your eyes and tell us how to clock it."

"Why me?" I had asked as Yanesh dealt Hanesh a tail-blow to the head from the top bunk.

"Politeness is a virtue, little bro."

"I thought you two were twins?"

"We are, Kasseena, but I'm five minutes older."

"So anyway," Hanesh had cut in, "as Aniera is our resident maintenance genius, I volunteer her to solve our problem."

So here I stood in RC7, trying to look inconspicuous as the other cadets from Geradam shift shuffled in for the meeting Bosh had called.  Yep.  Just a Little hanging around the Swimmer tank.  Nothing unusual here.  

I glanced around and surreptitiously leaned forward, keying into the computer touchpad on the tank the proper command to connect me to Abosh's tank.  I set his visual screen for a five second countdown.  Five.  Four.  Three.  Two.  One.

Go.  I started a mental count.

_One, Desbadeen, two, Desbadeen, three, Desbadeen, four….seven, desba—_

A rush of bubbles which sent me jumping backward appeared in the tank, and from the middle of the cloud appeared—

Bosh.

"Good morning cadet," he said, if not warmly, then politely.  I had a feeling that I should sit down.

"Won't you sit down?"

I sat down.

The computer had managed to put an acid tone in that translation, by some system I don't understand.  I never have been able to read Swimmer facial expressions, if they even have any.  But I can guess, and with Bosh, I usually guess "glare."

I was comfortably on the front row of the group of seats Bosh had had set up in RC7 for today's cadet meeting when there was another _whoosh of bubbles in the tank, out of which Abosh appeared, running nearly headlong into the ship's first officer.  Or whatever you call it when Swimmers swim into someone front-first._

The bubbles cleared.

"Goo—good morning, sir," came an identical computer voice, which must have been interpreting Abosh this time.

"Good morning yourself.  I doubt, cadet, that you have forgotten the _Keyala_'s regulations for tunnel speed?"  Definitely Bosh this time.  Even the computer voice dripped corrosive toxin.  

In case you hadn't figured it out yet, Bosh isn't the most kind-hearted fish on the ship.  He's also in charge of us cadets, as well as being second in command.  That means calling periodic meetings, assigning us work, and disciplining us if needed.  

The rest of Amagan shift arrived about thirty seconds after Abosh, bursting through the door in a way that wasn't _quite against regulations.  Bosh favored them with what I took to be a glower as they came to sit on the front row with me._

Surprise, surprise: all the other, farther-away seats had already been taken up.

The last to arrive was the Geradam maintenance cadet Daran, whom we heard hopping up the deck 10 corridor with a metallic _clonk, clonk_ for a few seconds before he arrived.  

On the homeworld, Clappers hop with a sound vaguely reminiscent of clapping, due to the soil and vegetation.  Hence, for anyone who hasn't caught on yet, the species name.  Science class with Aniera.

"I am sure," Bosh began now, with the computer voice amplified several times to get our attention, "I am sure that you have all heard a _version_ of what occurred yesterday during Amagan shift.  I called you here to stop the circulation of rumors"—he paused to send a fishy glower at a notorious Geradam female Clapper—"and to set you straight on what actually happened, which, from what I have heard, is not often what is being reported."

Hanesh cast a nonchalant glance at Kasseena and me, as if hoping that we had gotten something wrong.  Yanesh, intercepting the glance, glared a threat at him.  A _look_ from Bosh had us all facing forward again.

"Now then," he began, and proceeded to tell the story.  I was pleased to note that it was nothing more or less than what we had told Hanesh.  Let him stew in _that_.

"And now," concluded Bosh, "we are sitting on that very moon.  It has somewhat less gravity than our ArtiGrav system usually generates.  Do not be alarmed at the difference.  We are leaving the moon as soon as possible, which can hopefully be within the next thirty-six hours.  Which means that we need _everyone to be working at top shape today.  We are here solely to repair our vital systems, despite the urgings of some"—he sent a glare at Kasseena, as if he wished to chastise her over-zealous father through her—"and will leave as soon as those repairs are done."_

I bit my lip confusedly.  It sounded like we hadn't sent anyone outside, but I wasn't about to—

"Sir," Hanesh spoke up beside me, causing me to groan internally.  "Sir, does that mean we haven't sent anyone outside the ship?"

Bosh gave him what I interpreted as a queer look.  "No, cadet, no one.  Now if that's all, I'll—"

"Sir," Hanesh interrupted, and shot a glance at me.  I nodded support.  "We saw people outside last sleep period."

Bosh paused.

"It's true, sir," I piped up, figuring the deed was already begun.  "We were looking out the window, about an hour and a half into the sleep period, when we saw shapes—moving shapes—out against the horizon."

"Indeed."  I could hear the patronizing voice even without the computer interpretation.  "And how many of you saw these people, cadets?"

"Er—just us two, sir," said Hanesh, indicating him and me.

"I couldn't sleep, sir, so I was looking out the window," I jumped in.  Watch Hanesh give us an equal share in the adventure.  "I saw them and woke Hanesh up."  I was about to add the size of the creatures, but stopped.  Telling of mysterious ice-moon natives twenty meters tall wouldn't make our story any more credible.  

"Indeed.  Well, cadets, I'm sure you _thought_ you saw something…but you must remember that it is one hundred forty-four K on the moon's surface.  That's one hundred twenty-nine K below the freezing point of water.  No living thing could survive, especially without strong radiant energy."

I felt the presence, on my left, of a young Great rolling his eyes.  As if he'd never heard _that_ little speech before.  In any event, Bosh suddenly became more sharp.  

"It's obvious there's a case of gravity-nerves going on on this ship," he said.  "It's understandable, but unprofessional, and I don't want it to affect anyone's work.  Do you understand me?"

We nodded as a group.

"I don't want any talk of strange creatures.  It serves no purpose.  Within two days we will have left this moon and will probably be on our way back to Outpost _Yala.  Leave your wild stories for shore leave.  Dismissed."_

After Bosh had left, we got up.  The Geradam cadets started to mill around and talk about the briefing, but Hanesh, Yanesh, Kasseena, and I moseyed up to the water tank.

"So how did I do?" asked Abosh, and I blinked for a minute.

"I mean, how fast was I?" he amended.

"Oh!" I'd quite lost count.  "Well, Bosh arrived right on seven seconds, and you were at least three seconds behind him—"

"No way!" Abosh groaned as Hanesh did a silent victory dance.  Yanesh gave him another tail clip.  

"I've clocked myself at forty-eight _easy," Abosh said.  _

"Well, let's look at the math again," Kasseena said reasonably.  "A hundred meters, divided by a rate of—"

"It was a hundred and _ten_ meters," Hanesh cut in, groaning loudly.  "_That's _where I was off!  But I'm sure you didn't make it anyway," he added, looking challengingly at Abosh.  

"Excuse him," Yanesh said apologetically.  "I'm afraid _I used up all the available genes for politeness."_

"_I _just got left with the trifling leftovers…like intelligence…"

I'm afraid Kasseena and I may have incurred Great wrath by sniggering when Yanesh knocked Hanesh hard enough for him to fall on his butt.  Greats are a violent lot.  But they're great for entertainment.  

Hanesh glared at us from the floor.

"Gee, guys—I'm late for maintenance," I said, and walked—quickly—for the door.  I heard Kasseena buzzing behind me.

"Oh no, you—"

The closing of the RC7 door cut him off in mid-sentence.

Maintenance was a little understaffed today, since everyone else was out working on repairs to the vital ship systems.  By "a little understaffed," I mean "me."  Myself.  Aniera, Little maintenance cadet, the sole crewman on duty.  It was a little stressful.

The crew seemed to be tense, and I could relate to them on that.  But it was still annoying when two food synthesizers and a button on one elevator broke at the exact same time.  It was even more annoying when the people in all three of those areas expected to be my top priority.  I guess people tend to be crankier in tense situations; that might explain the mild verbal abuse I incurred.  ("It's about time you showed up, Little!"  "This button has been broken for twenty minutes, Little!"  "Cadet, need some rocket boots?"  Oh, the great comedians of the fleet.)

I was not sorry to see the end of Amagan shift that day.  I didn't want to talk to, or listen to, any other living being of _any_ species for twelve hours, when the sleep period was over.  And when I would have to get up and do it again, because we wouldn't leave the moon before another Amagan shift had been completed.

Do I sound cranky?  Sorry.  It had been a rough day.  

When I got back to the cadet quarters, Kasseena was already there, looking, of all things, tired.

"Hey, Kass."

"Hey, Aniera.  Man," she said, launching into her grievances right away, "when they say 'run this message to so and so,' they really mean _run_.  I am sorry, but no Flyer alive can carry a message from the bridge to deck 25 in two minutes!"

"It was a full day in maintenance, too," I offered.

"Everyone is so _tense_," she said.  "I saw things being broken left and right."  She laughed and buzzed her wings, as if just remembering something.  "Oh, Aniera: you should have seen the Captain today!  He tried to use the bridge elevator to get down to a lower level, but the buttons had been broken!  I bet he swelled up to twice his size, easy."

"Yeah?" I sat up, having a personal interest in this case.  "I remember that one: about an hour past mid-shift, right?  It was a Flyer crewman who did it: a Flyer!  He just got mad and pushed the button as hard as he could and he _broke _it."

"Yeah," she said, sounding suddenly noncommittal. "I heard that too."

"Well," I said, my face suddenly reddening.  "I guess…well, sometimes Flyers don't know their own strength."

"Flyers don't _have_ any strength," Kasseena corrected me in that same noncommittal manner.  "Didn't you know that, Aniera?"

That hadn't been a polite question.  I sighed.

"Sorry, Kass.  I guess…well, it's just usually a Great you hear about breaking stuff…I mean, that has to be inconvenient, you know?"

"Did I just hear the words 'Great' and 'inconvenient' in the same sentence?" came Hanesh's voice from the corridor door.  He and his sister entered in tandem, looking like twin lizard-monsters from a storybook or something.  If you looked closely, though, you could see their eyes opening and shutting in quick, fluttering motions.  That's what Greats do when they're tired.  In case you were wondering.  

"Full day?" I asked them, feeling clever as I observed their eyelids.  

"Yeah," said Yanesh, flopping down on the bottom bunk in the twins' set.  "I was on my toe-claws all day.  He tried to shirk"—she jerked her head at Hanesh, who wrinkled his nose at her—"but they caught onto him by midday."

"I was just as busy as you, Yan," Hanesh said indignantly.  "I was doing my part to get us off this asteroid in thirty-six hours."

I rolled my eyes.

"Aniera, I don't think you should be rolling your eyes at a direct command from our first officer!"

I rolled my eyes again, just to spite him.

"The messengers got a really raw deal today," Kasseena observed, buzzing her wings and stretching them tiredly.  "I should go out for the Five-Species Games."

"Well, what did we expect when we entered the fleet?" asked Yanesh reasonably, in the worst possible time for reasonableness to be accepted by the Amagan cadets.  "A picnic?  It's nothing we can't handle.  And we'll be out of here in twenty-four hours, tops."

Hanesh took this opportunity to fall asleep standing up, snoring loudly.  I was pretty sure he was faking.  Yanesh apparently thought so, too, because she made a point of bouncing up in her bunk hard enough that the entire bunk set lifted off the floor and crashed back down again.

CRASH!

"Yee-owch!" Hanesh yelled, though the beds had been at least a meter away from his feet.  "What was that for?"

"Yan, that scared even me," said Kasseena from the ceiling.  Yanesh smiled sheepishly and went to the changing room.

There was a bubbling sound in the water tank, and Abosh appeared.  If I was good at interpreting Swimmer facial expressions, I'm sure he would have looked tired to me.  

"Tired?" asked Hanesh.

He didn't bother to reply.  Yanesh came back soon, and we should have gotten to the business of getting ready for bed.  But we didn't.

"Heard any more about the Andalite ship?" I asked Kassena, who would more than likely have been the one to hear about it.

"None," she said.  "The _Keyala's_ sensors are back online now, and they're searching the system.  There's no ship, no other planets, no nothing."

"Except asteroids," Hanesh corrected her.

Kasseena made a face, which was hard for her insectile features to accomplish.  "That's for sure.  I'm beginning to think a few planets collided out there, the asteroid belt's so large.  That's actually a theory my father has advanced, when he could capture the Captain's ear."

I looked out the window during a lull in the conversation.  The galactic core had "risen" since last sleep period, and more of it was visible.  It's amazing what you can see on a world with little atmosphere that you can't see on the home world.  I walked to the window, remembering to leave Abosh enough room to see outside from his tank.  

OK.  Did I really want to start this discussion again?  It was questionable as to whether Hanesh would even still be on my side…I sighed, knowing there was nothing for it.

"Hanesh," I started quietly from the window.  "Hanesh, you agree with me, that we _saw people outside last night.  Right?"_

I turned around toward the group and saw Hanesh looking at me, and for one time in his whole life he had a serious expression on his face.

"Aniera, you know I was standing right there beside you.  I saw those things same as you did.  Why are you asking?"

I didn't have a chance to answer, because Yanesh butted in at this point, answering his question far more adequately than I could have.

"Oh, come _on_, you two.  In case you've forgotten, it's a hundred forty-four K out there, there is almost no sunlight, and mere wisps of an atmosphere.  And besides, Bosh has forbidden us to talk about it.  So why don't we just drop this line of conversation?"

"We saw what we saw," Hanesh said defiantly.

"And," I jumped in, wanting our side of the matter to be expressed with a little more eloquence, "how can we know that there aren't life-forms here that evolved for this very environment?  The one hundred forty-four K temperature, the little sunlight, the little atmosphere: those are conditions where life _as we know it_ can't survive.  But maybe…"

"Yeah, Yan," cut in Hanesh.  "You know, even on the homeworld, there's bacteria that can survive in volcanic vents and under glaciers.  It's not impossible."

That was exactly what I had been about to say, and I blinked.

Yanesh sighed and flopped down on the bed again.  "Look, you guys, I just don't see why you're so upset about this.  OK, so maybe you're right and Bosh is wrong.  Who cares about some moving shadows outside?  We're not even supposed to be talking about this, anyway," she said, glaring at her brother.

"_Some moving shadows?_  Yan, if there are people out there, they could be a threat to the ship!" cried Hanesh, correct if melodramatic.  "And besides, isn't it a little hobby of the fleet to look for new civilizations in the galaxy?"

Actually, that was the fleet's founding purpose.  We've done fairly so far: within fifty years we've discovered the Desbadeens, the Skrit Na, and the Andalites.  Plus countless worlds that contain only plant and lower animal life.  

"Look," said Kasseena.  "We're not saying we don't believe you."

"It's just that you don't believe us," said Hanesh.

"Shut up.  It's just that the chances you really saw something are slim.  You could have been sleepwalking—what say we go to sleep and forget about it?" she asked, seeing my betrayed expression.  "We'll be gone soon."

"Can I give my opinion?" spoke up a familiar computer voice, and we all turned toward Abosh's tank.  "I don't think we should _disbelieve Aniera and Hanesh.  Aniera and Hanesh don't usually sleepwalk.  And Aniera's trustworthy."_

"Hey," objected Hanesh.  Abosh ignored him.

"We should approach this issue with open minds," he said, sounding wise, like the _Cavisi_ should.  Whatever a _Cavisi is._

"If you guys don't believe us," I started, an idea popping into my head, "then I'll stay up and look for the creatures tonight.  I'll wake you up if I see them, and you'll all get a good look at them."

Yanesh groaned.  "But Aniera, we have precious few hours to sleep.  You want to be well-rested tomorrow…" I could tell she was really speaking for herself.

"_I_ think it's a good idea," Kasseena volunteered.  "At least we'll know."  I beamed at her.

"Guys?" came the "voice" of Abosh.  "Whatever you do, and may I suggest you _don't_ try to stop Aniera—"

"What was _that_ supposed to mean?" I asked suspiciously.

"—put out the lights fairly quickly, as I have to be at my post early tomorrow."

We complied, and got dressed for bed.  Everyone settled in, except me, who, after turning out the lights as usual, took up a post by the window.  

Fortunately, even with the galactic core in full view, it was dark enough for the others to sleep.  For the first twenty minutes of my watch, I was convinced that was what _I'd end up doing.  My eyelids felt weighted, even in my vertical position.  After an hour, I had almost given up and was turning around to go to bed—_

--when I felt a thick hand on my shoulder.

"I thought maybe we'd watch in shifts," whispered Hanesh in my ear.  I nodded gratefully as I went to bed.  Wow.  Maybe he has a decent streak after all.

It was during my second watch that sleep period that the creatures—whatever they were—made their appearance.  I was staring at the bright horizon line, noticing how curved it was, and feeling the tiniest bit homesick.  The tiniest bit.

My gaze was inevitably drawn by the soup of light just above the horizon; the galactic core was truly an awesome sight.  We see it from the homeworld, but not in all its glory.  It's amazing what you miss out on under the benevolent protection of an atmosphere.  So I stood and stared at the galactic core, wondering why everything worked and if destiny were real, or if everybody was just let loose on their own, like driftwood on a sea, with no guiding hand…sorry.  I don't know much about our free will theories; but that's what I was thinking about.

I must have dozed off.  I'm not surprised at that; I was very tired.  All I know is that one moment I was admiring sleepily the majesty of the galaxy, and the next I was…gone.  But still here.  I was delirious; this wasn't possible.  It wasn't possible to see the front, sides, back, and a few other surfaces of every object at the same time…there _were no other sides than front back and sides…were there?  Strange…the _Keyala_ looked quite different now…where was I going…or was I going anywhere?_

And then, suddenly—I was back.  Nothing had changed, and I hadn't even moved a muscle.  Nothing had changed…but in the center of my vision.  There.  Were my eyes playing tricks?  I was surely still dreaming.  Because there, in the middle of the galactic core, was an eye.  A red eye, on a throne.  The eye looked downward, and, involuntarily almost, I followed with my eyes.  

And now I was surely dreaming no more, because right there where I was looking now, silhouetted against the horizon line, was a large shape.  And it was moving.  

"Guys!" I called.  "Wake up!"

"Go to bhmmsf," Hanesh said as he rolled over and became muffled by the sheet.  I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant "go to bed."

"Hanesh!  It's them!"

Then Hanesh sat straight up.  "It's them?  Yan!  Wake up!"  He pounded on the underside of the top bunk.

I looked back to the galactic core, just in case…but there was no red eye, much less a disembodied red eye on a throne.  I had been dreaming.  That was it.  Yet I couldn't shake the feeling…

I was shaken out of my reverie by a Great hand clapping down on my shoulder.

"Unngh."

"Where are they, Aniera?"

I shook my head to clear it. "There," I said, pointing out where I had been looking…and sure enough, there they were.  Two shapes, definitely moving, definitely huge.  

"I see them," said Hanesh.

"_I_ see them," said Kasseena.  "Wow!"  And she buzzed her wings in amazement.  

"Let me see," complained Yanesh.  Then she fell silent.

"Excuse me," Abosh said testily from behind us, "but I _still haven't seen them.  Five witnesses __would look better in front of Bosh, hmm?  Especially—" he fell silent._

"The _Cavisi_?" I offered, not sure whether I wanted to grin at him or strangle him through the tank.  I settled for grinning, since there was no way I could have broken through the tank.

"Actually, I was going to say 'someone of his own species.'  But that works, too."

"You do that, fish-boy," said Hanesh, turning back to the window.  "You do that."

I blinked, confused and feeling that something had just happened that had been over my head.  

I moved aside for Abosh to see.

"So," I began after a few seconds, "what do we do now?"

"Well, I'm going to see Bosh," said Abosh.

"He'll never come with you," I said.

"Oh, he'll come with me," said Abosh.

"Tell him there's a semi-urgent emergency of an unspecified nature," said Kasseena.  "And that's an actual shipboard classification, you guys.  I should know."

"Brilliant," said Hanesh.

"He'll come," Abosh repeated, and left in a cloud of bubbles.

"Think he'll come?" I asked no one in particular.

"Mark my word, Aniera—he'll come faster than you've ever seen him go anywhere before."  

I glanced up at Yanesh after this surprising little speech, but the tall reptilian girl was silent now, mesmerized again by what was outside the window.

And Bosh came, definitely faster than I had ever seen him go anywhere before, if my information on where he slept was correct.

"I sure hope you cadets have found something worthwhile," he said, the grumbling tone evident even in the computer translation.  "Especially since I forbade you to discuss the subject."

"They're walking along the horizon line, sir," I said.  "We all saw them this time."

"Is this true, cadets?"

"Yes, sir."  Kasseena's voice was the only one that rang out to back me up, though I saw the Greats nodding their heads.

"There are two of them, sir," I continued.

"They're moving slowly…bipedal gait…" Kasseena buzzed her wings in agitation as she searched outside the window.

"It would, of course, be helpful if I had a clear view out the window, cadets."

"Of course, sir."  The four of us moved aside in tandem.

I waited, tense.  I hadn't seen the creatures in a few minutes…hadn't looked for them…please _please_ let them still be there…

"By the rings of Desbadeen," Bosh pronounced slowly, and after several tense minutes.  "By the rings of Desbadeen.  There _are_."

I let out a long, slow breath.  

"We have sent no one outside…_none…I would know…no landing craft that large…too big for…"  It sounded more like he was talking to himself than to any of us.  We let him continue until he addressed us directly._

"Cadets," he said at last.  "Thank you for bringing this to our attention.  I will inform the captain about what I have witnessed, and he will probably want to question you himself shortly.  For now," and he cast a glance around all of us that I imagined was approving.

"For now, _get to bed_.  This is _way_ too late an hour for an entire shift of cadets to be awake.  Get to sleep at once, if you want to be anywhere near efficient in your jobs tomorrow."  He left with a cloud of bubbles and without a goodbye.

So I guess it had been another severe glance, after all.

Yanesh broke the silence.  "Can we get to bed now?"

"I vote with Yanesh," I said, and Kasseena chimed in her agreement.

"If the Captain knocks on the door, I guess we'll hear it," I said as we laid back down.  

"Sure," Yanesh murmured from the top bunk.

But there was no knock, and the rest of the Amagan sleep period was peaceful.  It took me a few minutes to fall back into slumber, but when I did, it was a deep, satisfying sleep for the most part.  My only hint otherwise came when I woke up that shift-change, with the fleeting image of a giant, laughing red eye fresh in my mind.

A/N: Bosh—grr.  Oh, and B.R.E. = Big Red Eye.


	4. Mr Spock, he's not

A/N: HMMM…I wonder what those strange creatures they saw could have been?  Will they find them?  Will it be a hostile or a friendly greeting?  How will the Amazing Venber Melting Properties be discovered?  Read on to find out…MUAHAHA, you HAVE to read it now!  Oh…one other question…is there any tension on this mission? Muahaha….

Chapter Four

The Captain didn't call for us until after breakfast, but when he did, it was announced over the ship intercom system: "All Amagan cadets report to Recreation Chamber number one."  Which made _me_ feel important, at any rate.  Once we'd all assembled in RC1, the Captain (looking as intimidating as ever, and _still without a personal name) asked us what we had seen, what time we'd seen it, where the creatures had been, what direction they had been moving, and other questions I could go on about.  The Captain, unlike others I could mention, did _not_ remind us that this moon received little to no radiant energy and had an average temperature of a hundred and forty-four K.  This may have had something to do with Bosh attesting to the existence of the creatures along _with_ the crew of cadets._

The tension I'd noticed in the crew yesterday was still there today.  And by "still there," I mean more mild verbal abuse.  Fortunately, I was to be saved another day of cleaning up after everyone.  About midway through Amagan "morning," Kasseena showed up in the RC where I was doing a repair job.  Kasseena _never_ gets sent to the RCs, something about cadets being distracted and adult messengers being better for the job.  Also, Kasseena would _never_ be allowed to hang around as long as she did today.  It was a solid ten minutes before I'd fixed the food synthesizer and turned it back over to its (Great) users, and Kasseena was still there, so I moseyed on up to her.  Very nonchalantly.

"Kass—what are you _doing_ here?  Does this have something to do with—"

"Shut _up_," she hissed quickly, and cast a furtive glance around.  

"OK.  But—"

"Just follow me," she said, and turned to exit the RC, wings buzzing.  Buzzing very quickly.  My heart sped up, though I didn't know what this could mean.  But after an interview with the Captain…over something this important…anything that had Kasseena overlooking usual ship procedure and acting like this was bound to be momentous.

We reached an elevator.  Kasseena pulled me inside and hit a button for the bottom deck.

"Kasseena, what is this about?"

"Aniera, you know, I'm not really supposed to tell.  Really, people will talk, you're not supposed to know until we get to the airlock—"

_"Airlock?"_

"You see, it was just my father—"

"Kass!" I fairly shouted.  "Kass—what is happening?"

"We're going outside."

That was impossible, since cadets are never allowed on outside missions.

"That's—"

"My father's heading the mission: he's S.O., after all."  

"But—"

"After he heard about the creatures, Father was absolutely adamant: the Captain_ had_ to let him outside to explore.  We were the fleet; the fleet searches the galaxy for new life forms!  These creatures might be a hazard to the ship!  I think the Captain just _gave him the job to shut him up."_

"But how do _we_ come in?"

"Oh—my father's bringing out equipment—sensors and things.  He needs someone to run them."

"But why not a few crewmen?  Some Greats—"

"Well, there are advantages to having the _Keyala's science officer for a father," Kasseena said mischievously.  "I think he wanted to give me and my friends the opportunity."  So Hanesh and Yanesh were included, too.  "But, Aniera, who cares __why we're going?  We're going!"_

We reached the door to Airlock Four, a large room that could double for a cargo bay.  I'd been down here only once before, fixing something in RC7 down the hall.  Once we stepped inside the airlock, I saw Kasseena's father, a party of two security men (Great and Little), and Hanesh.  I looked for Yanesh, but didn't see her.  Hanesh was looking wary, edging away from the security personnel even as he tried to appear calm and collected.  I gave him a strange look as we passed him, which I'm not quite sure he caught.  

"Right then," the science officer began, and we all looked toward him.  He moved forward, torso flashing iridescent green, to the center of our small group, which had congregated in a rough circle around an all-terrain vehicle of the type that was standard throughout the fleet.  The big thing when you're a maintenance cadet is to graduate to working on the "planetsiders," as they're called.  Daran had already done it once.  

"Right then.  I'm sure the cadets here already know all about the mission parameters, but let's go over it again just to make sure there isn't any confusion."  Kasseena had the sense to look embarrassed, and the security men had the decency to only give us fleeting glances.  "We're going out on the surface of the moon, in the approximate direction in which the Amagan cadets saw some large moving creatures last night."  More glances exchanged between the security men.  "We're looking for any sign of these creatures.  And, of course, we'll be taking plenty of rock and ice samples along the way."  I could have sworn I saw the Great man roll his eyes, but when I turned my head to look at him, he was standing at perfect attention again.  

In the meantime, the S.O. had continued his speech unbothered.  "What I want the cadets to do is man the sensors, which are already installed in the planetsider.  Aiming aside, the sensors are easy to learn.  Radar's the red button.  Life-form sensors are the blue button.  A distress signal to the _Keyala is the yellow button.  Any questions?"_

Kasseena buzzed her wings.  "Is Yanesh coming?"

"Unfortunately, no.  Her section couldn't spare a worker today."

Kasseena looked disappointed, and I thought it was too bad she couldn't join in the adventure.

Actually, it's probably the best thing that could have happened—though I didn't realize it for days afterward.

"Right, then," said the S.O. "Suits on!  And we'll be on our way."

We found the protective space suits along one wall and returned to the planetsider.  It was an open-topped car with only a windshield in the way of walls, so we all entered it quickly and took our seats.

Which turned out to be a bit more difficult than it sounds here.

"As you can see," Kasseena's father said through the suits' open radio channel, "the space suits restrict your movement greatly.  You'll have to become accustomed to this, and work around it.  Kasseena, you'll have to remember that you can't fly." 

At that moment, the air began to be vacuumed out of the airlock chamber.  It was a strange feeling: lots of wind against my space suit, like I should have felt cold, but nothing touched my skin.  I put a hand to my arm, caught Hanesh giving me a pointed look that I couldn't discern the nature of behind his visor, and quickly put my hand down and turned forward again.

"Driver—driver!" said Kasseena's father quickly from the front passenger seat.  "Just do be careful—my own design—don't push the orange button, please."

The airlock doors opened.  Our driver, the security Little, drove the planetsider carefully down the extended ramp to the moon's surface.  

"Slowly now," cautioned the S.O.  Then to us, "Switch on the radar.  There's a gorge ahead that we need to go around."  Hanesh, who had taken a seat behind the main sensor array, complied and busied himself reading the resulting radar display on the sensor screen.  

"A _gorge_?" he exclaimed.  "It's a canyon!"

I flinched and sent him a "look."  The same look, in fact, that Kasseena was busy giving him at that same moment.  

"Er…we need to go left ninety degrees," Hanesh mumbled, and for a second I actually felt sorry for the guy.  Then I remembered who it was.

"While we're at it, switch on the life-form sensors," said Kasseena's father as we made the sharp left turn.  The back wheels of the planetsider slipped and slid.  

"Ice," I commented brilliantly.

"Yes," said the science officer.  "I'd like a sample of that ice for chemical analysis."  I nodded.  Then I noticed that everyone had turned their heads toward me, so that I had five UV-screened helmet visors looking at me.  Then I realized that I was the only person in the outside seat—or, I was the only _cadet with an outside seat, and security officers don't do grunt work when cadets are around.  I dropped, rather awkwardly, down the side of the vehicle as the driver stopped it, landed, and fell on my rear end.  Hard._

"Careful.  It's slick," said Kasseena's father, as Kasseena held a pick and sample bag out over the side for me.  Ha ha.  I nodded to the S.O., stood up, and received the tools from Kasseena.  I dug into the hard surface ice for a few samples, dropped them in the bags, and handed them back up to Kasseena.  Soon we were moving again.

It became readily apparent, once you left the ship, that the moon's landscape was much more interesting than the view from the _Keyala suggested.  Far from being the smooth, icy ground with a few rocks that I had envisioned, the lunar surface was covered in jagged outcrops of what appeared to be ice.  The ground rose and fell in wavelike hills and ended abruptly in cliffs, like those of the gorge walls to our right.  I could just see the gorge in the lunar-midday sunlight, about a kilometer distant, a dark void where the land ended on one side, skipped a few hundred meters, and reappeared.  _

"Strange," commented one of the security men, Little by his voice.  "It's almost as if this moon were seismically active.  But if it's cold enough that its crust is made of ice—"

"The ice may only be an outer layer of the crust," said Kasseena's father, switching to science-officer-mode.  "But it _does_ appear to have been seismically deformed within the past few million years.  Perhaps…"  He fell silent.

"It looks like this canyon goes on for miles," said Kasseena, peering at the radar screen in front of Hanesh.

"Yes," Hanesh added.  "We're coming up on the narrowest point we've seen: only about twenty meters across."

The science officer turned his head to look over the chasm.  "Twenty meters…sounds alright.  Cadets?  Would one of you aim the radar toward the far bank?"

Hanesh, who had taken it upon himself to run the sensors, complied.  "It's fairly smooth, sir…rock outcrop to the left twenty meters…"

At that point I happened to raise my eyes from the radar screen to Kasseena, who was looking from Hanesh, to the radar screen, to her father, in that order and repeatedly.  

"Kass?"

She gave a little head shake that was just barely perceptible.  Then she cocked her head, in a thoughtful manner, toward her father.

"Father," she began.

"Everybody in a seat," he said unnecessarily.  "And strap in.  And if I could have access to the controls…thank you, sir…"  A confused-sounding Little switched seats with the S.O.  

"Father?" she tried again, sounding worried this time.

"Hold on, everyone," said the S.O., and suddenly seat belts shot out of the left side of everybody's seat, buckling on the right.  OK, so now Kasseena's worry was spreading to me.  The S.O. pushed a series of buttons on the control panel.  I felt a vibration in my seat, as though something on the car were moving, shifting—

WHOOOSH!

The planetsider took off on rocket engines I hadn't known it had.  From the yells of shock from cadet and security officer alike, no one else had, either.  We didn't go _up so much as _forward_, shooting over the gorge and reaching the other side safely on our own momentum.  When we reached the far side, we only had about two meters to drop._

Ka-CHUNK.  But we didn't bounce, and it only took about five seconds for the S.O. to get the vehicle back under control.

The seatbelts unbuckled and automatically slid back in their sheaths.

Kasseena's father chuckled.  "I designed this car myself," he explained.  "It's perfectly safe, of course…providing that everyone is _buckled up_."

I wasn't amused, and I couldn't imagine that many of the others were, either.  But he _was the ship science officer, so no one offered complaint._

As the original driver took the driver's seat (rather shakily), I turned a blank visor toward Kasseena and Hanesh.  Two blank visors faced me.  The smallest one shook her head and turned back to the front.  The other one looked away toward the security Great and turned back to the front.  

"All right back there, cadets?"  Asked the S.O., turning around in his seat.  

"All fine, sir," I said after a moment's pause brought no confirmation from the other two.

"Good.  Well, sir, full speed ahead, if you would be so kind."  We began our trek again, full speed ahead and in the opposite direction of the _Keyala_.  Only then, and for a fleeting moment, did it occur to me to be afraid.  But then I shook myself out of it:  this was an away mission.  There was no place for fear or hesitation, especially when routine missions like this happened all the time.  

No one spoke again for about a half-hour, except for the occasional order to re-check the life form sensors or the radar.  I guess I had never really thought how hard it would be to find a few living creatures in a miles-wide desert of rock and ice, but now I saw that it could be compared to trying to find a micro-wrench in a scrap pile.  In fact, I realized, our chances of actually finding the creatures today were slim to none.  We had one carload of explorers, a radar set, and a world.  After stopping a few times for even more ice samples (I swear I began to believe the officers were just calling the breaks for the comedy of me falling on my butt), we continued on in a long, unbroken stretch.  Ice hills, outcrops, glistening spires and dull, low mounds surrounded us.  The hours stretched longer, with the hum of the oxygen filters in our suits and the jarring vibrations of the planetsider simultaneously lulling us to sleep and shocking us awake.

The S.O., on the other hand, was enjoying himself immensely. 

"Hmm…very interesting," he said, looking at the analysis his portable scientific gadgets had spat back at him.  "Fascinating!  Little to no iron—which points to the idea that this moon was originally molten."  He sounded as if he were speaking to somebody else, but from what Kasseena had told me, this was how he talked to himself.

"Er—excuse my asking, sir," I said shyly, "but _how does that point to—"_

"Well, you see," he interrupted, less rudely than enthusiastically, "if the moon was molten, then the heavier elements—oh, iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc—not the heaviest, of course, but substantially lighter than hydrogen, oxygen, silicon—well, you get the picture.  Anyway, if the moon was originally molten, all these heavy elements in the soup would have sunk to the bottom.  Because of gravity, you see.  And iron is fairly plentiful in the universe, or at least the part of it we've studied.  It makes sense that most bodies would contain iron."

"That makes sense," I said, really for lack of anything else to say.  It _did make sense, and I'd always had a sneaking affection for science.  I mean, it'd be a nice career path, wouldn't it?  But I actually didn't know that much, and I didn't feel like showcasing my ignorance.  Especially not for—the science officer of the _Keyala_.  _

"Now, this ice," he said, continuing on more for his benefit than mine.  "It is mostly water.  Many minerals dissolved in it, however—that's what leads me to believe the _ice_ was originally molten as well—thrust up by volcanic activity.  Some carbon dioxide in there, too.  A standard volcanic gas.  Yes, water, from within the planet; molten within, perhaps even rock material…"

"Does that mean—WHOA!" I cried out as the car suddenly fishtailed, slid, and began to turn up on two wheels.

"Whoa!" Kasseena's father shouted.  "Don't hit the brakes!  Don't hit the brakes!  Let it ride, sir!"

We gradually fell back on our four wheels again, and the driver stopped the vehicle.  No one had fallen out, which was a miracle, but the scientific equipment had been jarred and we spent a few minutes bringing it back online again.  

"What _was_ that?" said Hanesh, crouching to look at the underside of the sensor array.  

"Ice," said the driver, but I could have told him that.  "And slicker than the rest we've run across.  Care to aim the sensors at the ground ahead, young man?"  He glanced at the science officer.  "With your permission, sir?"

"By all means," Kasseena's father said.  "Let's see."

Hanesh sat up hurriedly and pushed the red button.  

"Very smooth," said Kasseena, reading off the display screen.  "No outcrops…hills…_anything…for miles.  Sir," she added._

"Yes, sir: it's like a sea of ice.  In front of us," Hanesh added.  He re-aimed the sensors.  "Be_hind_ us—terrain is…like what we've been seeing.  _And_ to the sides.  The ice begins in a nearly straight line, following contours of elevation."  I found myself very impressed with Hanesh's geography skills.  Then I remembered that it was Hanesh delivering that report, so it was all just showing off.  

"It's almost like a lake," Kasseena said.  "A lake of ice."

"Could it have welled up from the interior?" I asked, going for my own bit of showing off.

"I think so," said the S.O., nodding.  "Volcanic activity, like on our world—only with molten ice, not molten rock."  I shook my head to clear it.  "_Recent activity, too, I'd wager…"_

Hanesh got there before me.  "Do you mean there could be _water volcanoes_ here?"  he asked, somewhat incredulous.

"Possibly," the science officer said.  "It would hardly be unique.  But most likely they would function like geysers—the atmosphere here is so thin that liquid water on the surface would boil away quickly due to low air pressure.  _This_ lake must have been erupted in a large enough amount that the water froze before all of it could be evaporated.  In any event, I'd like a sample of this.  Aniera?"

I suppressed a groan, didn't look at the two security men's' helmets (or Hanesh, either, for that matter), and jumped down to the ground.  I fell on my butt again.

Kasseena handed me the pick, and I hacked up a few pieces of volcano-lake ice.  As I did, I happened to notice something interesting: the ice from the interior of the lake had a far shinier luster than the material from the surface.  I bent down to examine a piece I had excavated.  Unfortunately, this involved my shifting my weight, which involved me finding myself, once again, on the ground looking up at the S.O.'s not-quite-worried face, trying not to blush too maroon.  This time, however, it did not come to naught.  I began to push myself up—

Brainwave.

"Hey!"

"Hey, what?" asked Hanesh.

"Hey, there's frost," I clarified.  "Science officer, sir, there's some kind of frost on the ground down here." I pointed to some I had rubbed off the ice.  "It's very hard, sir, but it's not the original ice."

Kasseena's father peered hard, then jumped down himself, which put us, after a second or so's flailing, roughly face-to-face.  I heard a delicate snort over my open-channel radio, then the buzzing of a pair of wings.  

"Well, Aniera, it seems you've found something," the S.O. said, not giving any notice to his humiliation.  He gathered up some of the frost, and put it into a small tool he was carrying.  After a second or so, it beeped, and he checked a small screen on it.

"Well," he said after a moment or so, "_very interesting."_

"What is it?" I asked.

"The main component in this frost is water.  If it had been carbon dioxide, nitrogen, then perhaps this frost could be explained as atmospheric freezing."

"The atmosphere _freezing_?"

"Certainly not," he said.  "No water vapor in _this_ atmosphere in any amount like this."  I blinked, not sure he'd answered my question.  "I believe," he continued dramatically, "that we may have found one of Hanesh's geysers."

"Here?" asked Kasseena.

"Well, somewhere," said the S.O.  "And nearby.  Close enough that ejecta has reached this area."

Then the science officer of the _Keyala, sprawled on the ground like me, reached forward a gloved hand and gave mine a shake._

"Good work, Aniera.  We may not be closer to finding these creatures, but we've certainly got something interesting to study in the meantime.  And who knows?  Perhaps these creatures, whatever they are, thrive on the minerals ejected by this vent."

I grinned.

A/N: …and they all grinned with her.  Hopefully.  Hopefully Governor's School hasn't fried my writing ability.  I don't _think_ it has…


End file.
